


Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline)

by heavvymetalqueen



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Blood, Branding, Graphic Wounds, M/M, Self-Harm, Shotgunning, assisted self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 03:12:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12521668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavvymetalqueen/pseuds/heavvymetalqueen
Summary: They only know how to hurt, even with their love.





	Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline)

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the incredible Our Beloved Monsters zine. Posted now for Bosselot week since the prompt "Blood Pact" was just....too perfect.

They offer him plastic surgery, when he gets back to the West. A glass eye.

Snake refuses.

He has already adjusted to the impaired sight and the wound has already healed, as much as it can, pale pink flesh webbed over what little is left of his eyeball - a pale ghost that sluggishly moves under the cauterized skin but he can’t see out of.

And Snake does not deserve to be whole, She lost everything for him. He only lost an eye, and his faith in everything.

He dreams about the filthy interrogation room at Graniny Gorki, sometimes - the stench of piss and singed hair, the blood metallic in his mouth, the Boss’ knife brushing his eyelashes, the white hot flash of the revolver’s muzzle that plunged half his vision in darkness. In this dream, he always sees Ocelot - fake bravado barely covering the terror in his young eyes.

It’s still a better dream than the one where he’s back at Rokovoj Berej, the Patriot impossibly heavy in his hand, the scent of flowers suffocating.

But other nights the dream is a different one, the same dream he had in his cell back then, as well: delicate white hands and cool water on his burning skin, wiping crusted blood and dirt out of the wound. The smell of disinfectant and gunpowder. A low soft voice, apologizing. Full lips fluttering against his cheek, scared and innocent.

It had to be a dream. Eva couldn’t have visited in his cell, and _he_ had no reason to, no reason to treat him so gently after almost killing him.

Hadn’t he?

***

Getting the knife in was the easy part. The hard part is not digging too deep, resisting the temptation to gouge out his heart. He doesn’t need it anyway.

Slicing through himself hurts, a lot more than he thought he would. But the pain is good. Pain is something he understands. Pain is something they shared. Pain is something that keeps him close to her.

He struggles to keep his hand steady as he drags the knife across his chest, cutting through his muscles, blood trailing down his stomach. He’s not even at the first curve and his vision is clouding.

He’s still not worthy of her.

He’s not sure when Ocelot arrives into his room but suddenly he’s there, shouting, eyes wide and scared.

Ocelot reaches for the knife, trying to pull it out. He stops him, clamps his hand over his, leads him deeper, downward.

“John, what are you _doing_ ,” says Ocelot, his breath shallow.

“Help me.”

It’s ironically appropriate to have him do this. He’ll be the cause of both scars.

If he can do it.

Ocelot pulls his hand back, staring at him.

“What do you think this will accomplish?”

“I don’t know.” He hasn’t known for a long time.

Ocelot slowly pulls off his gloves, setting them carefully on the floor. He unbuttons his shirt, shrugging it off. One bare hand holds Snake steady at his ribs. The other wraps around the handle of the knife.

“Stay still,” he says, his voice low and serious.

Snake relaxes into his touch, the cold pain in his chest. He trusts Adam.

The knife moves again, a lot steadier than in his own hand. It cuts deep, slowly and accurately.

His whole torso is burning and he can barely tell where the knife is cutting, but he knows Ocelot will follow the right pattern. They’ve both seen that scar before. He looks down. There’s blood everywhere, on his lap, on the floor, staining Ocelot’s hands so much it looks like he’s still wearing gloves. He breathes. The knife cuts more, carving a path of fire as it sinks into his stomach.

He looks up at Ocelot. He’s panting, lips parted, sweat trailing down his flushed face, his eyes blown and dark.

He looks just like he does when they fuck.

He grabs the back of his head and pulls him forward, searching for his lips. The knife slips, goes too deep, he gasps.

“John,” pants Ocelot. “Let me...”

Snake doesn’t let him go. Ocelot’s free hand grips his side so hard he breaks the skin, but what is more blood right now? The knife trails down the last few inches, dangerously close to his groin. Ocelot is straddling his thigh

Snake almost expects his guts to pour out of his stomach when Ocelot pulls the knife out. Blood soaks his and Ocelot’s pants, gushing like juice out of an overripe fruit, the smell sharp and nauseating.

Ocelot runs his hands over the wound, blood staining him to the elbow. He brings his hands to his mouth, lapping at it, smearing red all over his face, his neck, his bare chest.

When he kisses Snake, he tastes like blood, sticky and metallic. Snake’s trembling hands grasp his hip and pull him flush to his chest, as if to impress the same line on him.

Snake almost wishes he had enough blood left inside for more.

Instead he just lets Ocelot drag him over to the wall, and goes boneless against it. Watches him get up, retrieve the first aid box. His pale skin is like a modern painting of bright, dripping crimson lines.

He’s too exhausted to even feel the burn of the disinfectant. He does wince when Ocelot starts sewing him back together. He grips his thigh and endures the feeling of the needle going through his aching flesh, the thread pulling at every breath.

“I’m leaving the Patriots,” he croaks as the pain slowly ebbs into a dull ache peppered with silver needles.

Ocelot doesn’t stop sewing.

“I can’t take this. It wasn’t supposed to be...like this. This is just....disgusting. I will not be a puppet for his fucking plans. This is not what she wanted.”

“And this is what she wanted?” says Ocelot softly, pulling the thread around a difficult edge.

“Probably not. But I want to....try. And find out.”

Ocelot nods, keeps sewing.

“What are you going to do?”

Ocelot keeps sewing.

“Adam.”

“I’m staying.”

Snake snaps his eye up to look at him, and his head spins.

Ocelot holds his gaze and smiles. “You’re going to need a mole, after all.”

His hand is heavier than lead but he manages to cup his cheek, adding even more blood to his face. “You sure?”

“You know where my loyalty lies, John.”

Snake lets his hand drop.

“Your mother used to say not to put your loyalty in people. People change.”

“It’s my choice what I do with it.”

Snake’s head lolls back against the wall. “Just be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” mutters Ocelot, sewing the last of the cut, snapping the thread with his teeth.

Snake lets the blood loss and Ocelot’s capable hands do the rest. He lets him clean him up with a damp towel and bandage him. He can’t stand when Ocelot pulls him up, but somehow he manages to make it to the bed.

He doesn’t let Ocelot go even if sleep is fighting for dominance.

“Stay with me,” he slurs.

“Just let me get cleaned up.”

Snake lets go, too weak to resist. He’s almost asleep when Ocelot comes back a few minutes later, cool and wet against his burning skin.

“Sleep, John,” he says quietly, hand resting on the throbbing wound he carved into him.

Snake sleeps.

***

These days Ocelot is the one that looks like he came out of a coma. He’s pale and drawn, deep dark shadows under dull eyes.

Snake hates it. Hates seeing him like this, hates knowing Ocelot’s doing this for his sake, destroying himself piece by piece for him. He never asked for this. He feels doubly cheated by his coma - he missed almost ten years of Ocelot gracefully slipping into his forties and now that he has him, he’s a shadow of himself.

The worst is the drugs. Thanks to his high resistances, he’s taking doses that would knock out a horse, and still insists on being by his bedside whenever he isn’t hacking into his own mind with a hacksaw. Brings him up do date on the past nine years even though sometimes he can barely remember his own name, takes care of him even though he can barely stand.

Seeing Ocelot so quiet and subdued, seeing him trip into his own feet and fumble with objects in his hands is absolutely heartbreaking. Ocelot without his natural catlike grace is unacceptable, an Ocelot put together wrong. It makes Snake’s forced bed rest even worse.

“I want to smoke,” says Snake, desperate to get a rise out of him as much as he is for nicotine, staring at him as he goes through one of his notebooks, taking tiny notes in his incomprehensible shorthand.

“Tough luck, I don’t want to get in trouble with all the nurses in here,” he says without even looking up.

“Adam,” whines Snake.

He looks up with a sigh. “Look....”

“What about the window? If I smoke out the window, nobody will know.”

A smile is tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Well, if you can get up and walk to the window on your own, I’ll let you smoke.”

Snake feels a surge of determination. He hasn’t been able to stand for more than a few minutes, but the window is so close.

Slowly, internally cursing the body that is still not responding to him like it should, Snake pushes the blankets down and swings his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet hovering a little above the floor.

Ocelot is on his feet and at his side instantly. Snake’s pride balks, but he lets him put a gentle steadying hand under his elbow as he slides off the bed and takes his time adjusting his feet to the floor. He pushes himself forward, and he’s proud of himself for not overshooting it. He stands, somewhat straight, and Ocelot smiles at him. He almost looks like his Adam when he does that.

His steps are slow and careful, barely lifting his feet off the cool linoleum. He’s ashamed to be already dizzy and weak by the time he leans his weight against the windowsill. Ocelot drags his chair over with his foot, and Snake sits down gratefully. He crosses his arms over the windowsill, resting his chin on them, and closes his eyes. It’s a beautiful sunny day, and the breeze smells like sea salt and lilacs. A shard of sunlight hits his face and Snake’s skin tingles, craving warmth and freedom.

“This is nice,” he says quietly.

Ocelot runs a tender hand through his hair. He’s gloveless, his palm soft and warm on his scalp.

“So,” he says with a grin. “I upheld my part of the deal.”

Ocelot takes a cigar case out of his pocket, and it takes one look for Snake to recognize it as one of his Cubans, all the way from the seventies. Of course he’d keep something so pointless.

He rolls the cigar between his fingers right under Snake’s nose, and he inhales deeply, his mouth watering. Ocelot cuts the tip, clicking a zippo to light it.

Snake stares hungrily as the tip burns red and Ocelot’s mouth fills with smoke.

“Adam, please.”

Ocelot takes another puff, and with his free hand he cups Snake’s cheek, tilting his head up.

He leans down, lips brushing Snake’s before thick, cool smoke floods his mouth, aromatic and heady.

Snake feels dizzy, from the sudden spike of nicotine and, to be honest, from the soft lips almost touching his. He hasn’t had the strength to even think about anything more strenuous than holding hands, but now something primordial is finally awakening in him, achingly aware that he hasn’t felt his lips on his for _years_ , hasn’t felt the smoothness of his skin or the heat of his body. He lets the smoke trickle slowly out of his mouth, looking up at Ocelot expectantly.

This time, when he leans down to blow smoke into his mouth, Snake grabs the back of his head and pulls him down, their lips slotting together as if not a day has gone by since they last said goodbye, without knowing it would be the last time for such long while. Smoke leaks out from between them as their tongues slowly tangle, sliding together in warm, wet heat.

“Boss,” breathes Ocelot as they part.

It’s like a bucket of icy water has been dropped on them, and they freeze.

The tense second stretches into infinity, or at least it feels that way.

“I mean. John,” he stammers, but it’s too late.

Snake grabs his wrist, as forcefully as he can with his weakened muscles. It’s enough for the state Ocelot’s in. The cigar rolls onto the windowsill. “Adam.”

“I’m, I’m sorry, I don’t know....”

“Are you forgetting me?”

“No. No, I’m not, I can’t, never....” even the weak struggle is winding them up, and Snake lets go of his wrist. Ocelot crumples against him, warm forehead against his. “I’ve been trying to work on the, the name thing. When he comes to, I can’t...I can’t call him John. I just can’t.”

“But _I’m_ not him,” growls Snake.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so...” his voice is thick and so sad. “I’m just so _tired_.”

Snake puts a hand on the back of his head, holding him still. “Sorry. It’s just. I don’t want you to call me that. Anybody but you.”

“I’ll tweak the suggestion tomorrow. It won’t happen again.”

Snake picks the cigar back up, and takes a small puff, just to keep it lit. He takes Ocelot’s hand, kissing his palm.

Then he presses the lit cigar in the middle of it.

Ocelot yelps, tenses as if he wants to pull back, but doesn’t. Snake presses the burning tip deeper, through his smoldering skin and into his flesh, the crackle of it swallowed by Ocelot’s shallow breathing.

“Don’t you dare forget me, Adam,” he growls.

“I won’t,” whimpers Ocelot, tears gathering in his eyes. “I won’t, John, I will never forget you.”

“Do not explain this scar away,” he says, finally pulling the cigar back. The tip is almost snuffed, and the wound is a bright red circle on Ocelot’s perfect, flawless white palm. Blood blossoms from it, slowly trickling for his fingers. The center of the circle is black, the burned flesh smells like a wild animal roasting over an bonfire.

Ocelot touches the center of it, hissing. His fingers are stained with blood and ash when he pulls them back. He presses them to Snake’s lips, letting him lick it away.

Snake takes his hand again and brings it to his mouth, licking the wound directly. Ocelot whimpers, high pitched and breathy. Snake can’t tell if it’s pain or arousal - but if he knows his Adam, and he does, it’s both. The wound tastes burned and metallic. He laps it dutifully, cleaning off all the blood and soot.

Ocelot’s other hand is in his hair, shakily petting him. “I love you,” he says softly, his eyes hooded and unfocused.

“It’s killing me seeing you do this,” Snake whispers, kissing the wound gently.

“It’s my choice. It’s the only way.”

Snake slowly rises to his feet, looping his arms around Ocelot’s shoulders, tucking his face into his neck, breathing into his scent. “When Outer Heaven is done, when it’s safe...I’m coming to get you. I will not let you go again.”

Ocelot grips his sides. “I’ll be waiting. Even if I won’t remember what I’ll be waiting for.”

Three weeks later, he steals one last kiss and refuses to watch as he slowly fades from Adam’s eyes. He rides away from the burning wreckage and his phantom, leaving his future in his capable hands once again.

 

 


End file.
